


a love that makes you shiver

by WingedQuill



Series: geralt sad hours 2020 [4]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Betrayal, Break Up, Evil Jaskier, Frostbite, Hurt No Comfort, Hypothermia, Imprisonment, Kidnapping, M/M, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:42:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25071829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingedQuill/pseuds/WingedQuill
Summary: “You know,” a voice says lightly, conversationally. “That was the first thing you told me about witchers. That you can’t stand the cold.”Geralt’s eyes flutter open.Snow. Trees. Jaskier, smiling down at him like he always does when he wakes up before Geralt. Jaskier, smiling down at him from the other side of a set of heavy-looking bars.(Or: Geralt wakes up in a cage. Jaskier's mission comes to an end.)(Written for Geralt Whump Week, Day 4: Betrayal)
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: geralt sad hours 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1811878
Comments: 25
Kudos: 194
Collections: Best Geralt, The Witcher Flash Fic Challenge #003





	a love that makes you shiver

The first thing Geralt notices is the cold.

He still feels a bit floaty, when he wakes, like he’s still half-dreaming, and the sound around him is muffled and hazy. But he instantly feels the chill, creeping over his skin and burrowing down to his bones. His lungs stutter in his chest, seizing against the frigid air, and he curls his heavy limbs in closer to himself, trying to preserve his body heat.

A soft, familiar laugh filters through the haze.

“You know,” a voice says lightly, conversationally. “That was the first thing you told me about witchers. That you can’t stand the cold.”

Geralt’s eyes flutter open.

Snow. Trees. Jaskier, smiling down at him like he always does when he wakes up before Geralt. Jaskier, smiling down at him from the other side of a set of heavy-looking bars.

That last detail is what kicks Geralt into panicked motion. He shoves himself up on shaking arms, hissing as his fingers slip across the cold snow, and staggers to his feet. Jaskier watches him with….amusement? Pity? Indifference? Geralt can’t tell. He can’t _read_ him.

He only knows it can’t be Jaskier.

He spins around in a slow circle, confirming that the bars surround him on all sides, a metal cage in the middle of the snowy woods.

“The perfect prison, don’t you think?” not-Jaskier continues, his eyes shining bright blue against the blur of white around them.

“W-what-“ Geralt starts, and clamps down on his chattering teeth.

“What did I do? Spiked your food last night, dragged you here when you passed out. Well, contacted my associates and had them drag you here. But same difference really.” He waves his hand carelessly. “You won’t be meeting any of my associates anyway. I’m the one assigned to you.”

 _Assigned_ to him? What in the seven hells did _that_ mean?

“What did you do with Jaskier?” Geralt snarls. He stalks forward as he speaks, reaching out to grab the bars. As soon as he makes contact, his fingers _burn,_ sharper and brighter and worse than the pain caused by the cold. He yelps and lets go, looking down at his hands to see blisters forming on his fingers.

“That one took you a while to tell me,” not-Jaskier says. “The silver sensitivity. You were so _ashamed_ of it, so convinced it would make me leave you. So sure it would make me see you as a monster.”

He laughs at that, a sharp, unamused sound that Geralt has never heard come out of Jaskier’s throat before, and never wants to hear again. Rage floods him, rage that a doppler would dare steal his love’s face, his voice, his laugh. Dare twist them in this way.

“But darling, I’ve always thought you were a monster,” not-Jaskier says, stepping closer to the bars. “And nothing you did could’ve made me leave you.”

“Shut the fuck up and tell me what you did with Jaskier.”

Not-Jaskier tilts his head, smiling still.

“You think I’m a doppler,” he says. “Oh, that’s rich. What, you don’t think your little songbird has the capacity to hurt you?”

Geralt growls in his throat, low and warning.

“Scary. I’d be terrified, if I were in that cage with you.”

It’s the same sort of insult Geralt has heard Jaskier lob at countless posturing drunks in countless shitty taverns, rolling his eyes as someone tried to drag him into a fight. _Dopplers know everything about a person,_ he reminds himself. _That’s what makes them so dangerous._

“But I’m not,” not-Jaskier says. Another step forward. “And I’m not a doppler, either.”

He reaches out and wraps his hand around one of the silver bars. Geralt waits, expecting to hear a sizzle of burning flesh, a scream, a curse as not-Jaskier’s skin melted away to reveal the snow white flesh of a doppler.

Nothing.

“See?” not-Jaskier—or—or— _no—_ says, letting go of the bar to show Geralt his uninjured, unmelted hand. “A hundred percent human.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt chokes. Because this is Jaskier. This is his husband, standing outside a fucking _cage_ that he’s locked Geralt in, studying Geralt like he’s a particularly interesting beast. “Jaskier, what—why— _why the fuck are you doing this?”_

Jaskier sighs.

“I wish I didn’t have to, dear heart,” he says.

“Don’t fucking call me that.”

Jaskier clucks disapprovingly, moving away from the bars.

“Vulgar as always,” he sighs. “No appreciation for more elegant language. That’s one of things I hope changes about you.”

“What.”

“Why am I doing this?” Jaskier sighs, sweeping his arms to indicate the cage, the woods around them. “I’m saving you from yourself, my love. That has always been the goal. Saving all you poor, monstrous witchers from yourselves.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll see,” Jaskier says. “Everything will make sense in just a little while longer. I just need you to hold on a little bit more, can you do that for me?”

“Do I have a godsdamned choice?”

“Not really,” Jaskier laughs. “Good point.”

Geralt sinks to the ground. His head is spinning. Twenty-five years. Twenty-five years of walking the path with Jaskier by his side and he—he locked Geralt up and watched as he froze and called him a monster. He doesn’t know which one of those things hurts the most.

“Don’t worry, dear monster,” Jaskier says, kneeling down in the snow on the other side. The smirk has slid off his face, and there’s sadness in his eyes, like he actually cares about what’s going through Geralt’s head. “I still love you. That’s why I’m doing this. I swear you’ll understand. I swear you’ll thank me.”

“When I get out of here,” Geralt growls. “I’m putting a sword through your heart. Silver.”

Jaskier sighs. He sounds almost disappointed.

“You’ll understand,” he says, getting to his feet. “You’ll understand very soon.”

Geralt doesn’t dignify it with an answer. He just curls up on his side with his back to Jaskier, tucking his hands under his armpits to keep them warm.

“I’ll be back soon,” Jaskier says.

The snow crunches under his feet as he leaves, and when Geralt can’t hear his footsteps anymore, he finally lets the tears fall. They trace hot lines over his frozen face, burning and burning and _burning_ like silver, like frost, like the broken heart beating coal-hot and heavy in his chest. A sob bursts out of his throat and he bites down on his fist, shoulders shaking, trying to muffle any other traitorous noises.

 _You can cry around me,_ Jaskier said once, when Geralt was trying to battle back tears over yet another innocent he’d failed to save. _It’s okay. You don’t have to be invincible._

Had he laughed to himself later? Congratulated himself on getting the monster to cry for him? On putting yet another crack in Geralt’s armor?

 _Stop crying,_ he tells himself as more tears stream over his face. _Stop crying, stop crying, stop—_

But it’s his husband of five years, his lover of ten, his best friend of twenty, he’s known Jaskier for _twenty five fucking years._ So he doesn’t stop crying for a very long time. And when he does, he doesn’t feel the relief that usually comes after tears, the relaxed feeling in his chest, the clean peace that comes with letting go of something heavy. He just feels exhausted, and numb, and still so fucking sad.

The numbness might come from the cold admittedly. He flexes his fingers, wincing when they’re slow to bend to his command. If he stays out here much longer, he’s going to get frostbite.

Jaskier would probably like that.

_Gods._

He battles off another round of tears and sits back up, shivers running up and down his body as he does so. He needs to keep moving, keep his blood pumping, if he wants to survive this. He doesn’t know why Jaskier would have locked him in here if not to kill him from hypothermia, and Geralt isn’t giving him the fucking satisfaction.

He turns around, facing the front of the cage, where Jaskier had been. His footsteps are already mostly filled in with snow. Hanging on a tree branch some ten feet from the cage, an ornate silver key twirls in the freezing wind. It’s a delicate thing. A pretty thing. The thing that would set Geralt free, dangling just out of his reach.

Jaskier is taunting him.

He can’t hold back the tears at that realization.

***

His hands are freezing.

His hands are burning.

His hands are fucking _dying._

***

By the time Jaskier comes back, the air has frozen in Geralt’s throat and he can barely move his fingers. They’ve gone all whitish-blue at the tips, a sure sign of frostbite setting in. Dread coils in Geralt’s throat as he stares at them, as he desperately tries to curl his hand into a fist. It listens to him, but slowly, clumsily.

_Fuck. Fuck it all to hell._

“Oooo, that doesn’t look good,” Jaskier says as he walks up to the cage. It’s exactly the same sentence, exactly the same tone, that he had used upon seeing dozens of injuries, before grabbing bandages or a potion and setting to work patching Geralt up.

 _Don’t cry,_ Geralt tells himself as he lifts his chin and glares at Jaskier. _Don’t you dare cry._

“Well, look on the bright side,” Jaskier says cheerily. “It’ll disincentivize you from picking up a sword again, which is excellent.”

“Is it?” Geralt snarls. Because Jaskier is ripping away Geralt’s life purpose, snatching up his ability to swing a sword and then acting like it’s a _good_ thing, and Geralt still doesn’t know why he’s doing it.

“It is,” Jaskier says. “And don’t worry. When it’s all over, I’ll take care of you, dear heart. You won’t need to lift a finger.”

Geralt stares at him.

“You think we’ll just fall into happy domestic bliss when this is over? After you’ve fucking crippled me for life?”

“Yes,” Jaskier says, like there’s no other possible option. Like Geralt coming home with him is an immutable fact.

“What, you gonna chain me to the bed?” Even as Geralt says it, fear creeps into his throat. He wouldn’t put it past this new Jaskier to do just that.

“No!” Jaskier gasps. “No, no, of _course_ not. After this, after _all_ of this, you’ll be free to go. Go do whatever you want. I just think…I think you’ll want to stay with me, once you understand. I hope you’ll want to stay with me.”

“Then you’re fucking mad.”

“Maybe I am,” Jaskier says. “I wasn’t supposed to fall for you, after all. You were just a mission. A…trial run, if you will. But I love you, Geralt, despite the monster running your life. And I hope that you’ll love me back, properly this time, once you’re free of it.”

There’s so much wrong with that, Geralt doesn’t even know where to start. But his heart takes the reins.

“Properly?” he asks. “Jask, I’ve loved you for _years,_ I thought I could love you forever, I don’t understand why—”

“Pretty words,” Jaskier sighs, and there’s regret in his eyes. “But you don’t understand them yet. You don’t really know what you’re talking about.”

“What do you mean?” He hates how fucking _small_ he sounds.

“You don’t feel love. It’s a scientific fact. A sad one for sure, but…oh dear heart, don’t look at me like that.”

The tears are burning on his cheeks again. He closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at Jaskier. Jaskier thinks he doesn’t feel love. This whole time, through Geralt’s shaky declaration, through kisses traded under stars, through dancing together on the coast, through their fucking _handfasting ceremony,_ Jaskier has thought that he doesn’t feel love.

He thinks he might be drowning.

“You’ll feel it soon enough,” Jaskier says. “And then everything will be okay.”

He places a jug on the ground near the bars. It’s small enough that Geralt could grab it and pull it through.

“Drink this,” he says. “Just drink this, and I’ll let you go, okay? And then you can love me, or not, you can stay with me, or not. But you’ll be free. And that’s all I care about, alright? That’s all I’ve ever cared about.”

***

Geralt stares at the jug for a very long time.

Whatever it is, he doesn’t want to drink it. He doesn’t know what the fuck Jaskier wants to do to him, but he knows it can’t be good.

But the numbness in his hands is getting worse and worse, and if he doesn’t get someplace warm soon, he knows he’s going to lose them.

And no matter what this does, it can’t be worse than that.

So he drinks.

***

It _hurts._

***

He doesn’t know how much time has passed when he wakes up. But the world is muffled again, muffled and painful and _cold._

There’s someone leaning over him.

“Open your eyes, dear heart, that’s it, come on.”

_Jaskier._

Geralt opens his eyes with a growl, fully intending to reach up and strangle him. But his arms aren’t listening to him—none of his body is listening to him, it’s all loose-limbed and weak like a newborn kitten—so he barely manages to lift them off the ground before they flop back down.

The world is _wrong._

It’s fuzzy and dim, and when he tries to expand his pupils to take in more light it doesn’t work. What kind of drug had Jaskier _given_ him?

Jaskier gasps. He looks delighted, like he’s watching a baby bird emerge from its shell.

“It worked,” he says. “Oh, sweet Melitele it worked, I _knew_ that getting you weak from the cold would be enough.”

“What did you do?” Geralt says. Each word is a battle to get out from his throat.

“I should’ve brought a mirror,” Jaskier mutters. “But that’s alright, you’ll see soon enough. Oh, I have so much to show you, so much to teach you.”

He babbles excitedly to himself as he hoists Geralt to his feet. The world spins around him, but miraculously, Geralt manages to hold on to consciousness. Manages to match Jaskier step for shaky step as they walk out of the cage.

“We’ll go to the coast again and you’ll be able to appreciate how beautiful the ocean is, and we can redo our handfasting ceremony, now that you’ll actually mean the vows, and—”

Geralt throws an elbow against Jaskier’s ribs. It’s weak, but Jaskier still lets go of him. Probably out of surprise more than anything else. Geralt sways on his feet but stays standing.

“You…” Jaskier blinks. His eyes are turning red. “You still don’t love me?”

“I always fucking loved you,” Geralt says. _Don’t cry._ “Until you locked me in a cage.”

“You don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t fucking _understand_ Jaskier, I don’t understand why someone who claims to love me would do something like that.”

“I see.” Jaskier takes a deep, shaky breath. “I see. Well. Go on, then.”

Geralt takes a slow step away. Another. Another.

Hands don’t close around his throat. A blow doesn’t come down on his head.

“I’ll wait for you,” Jaskier says behind him. “When you see. I’ll take you back. I swear.”

Another step.

Another step.

_Don’t cry until you’re safe._

Another.

Another.

Jaskier starts sobbing behind him, but Geralt doesn’t look back.

***

The first thing he does, when he gets to an inn with a surprisingly friendly innkeeper, is to look in a mirror.

_You’ll see soon enough._

Brown eyes, _human_ eyes, stare back at him.


End file.
